


A Rare Luxury

by ElDiablito_SF



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Brotp, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 20:31:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10861551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: Eleanor Guthrie needs no man to take care of her; although she won't say no when a certain pirate captain shows up at an opportune moment.





	A Rare Luxury

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Eleanor Guthrie Memorial Week on Tumblr. I love my Queen of Thieves <3.

It was an unusually hot night, which was saying quite a bit for Nassau, all things considered. Her hair clung to her neck, soaked in perspiration, limp from the humid air and her own overexertion. Her skin still smelled of Charles Vane. It was of some consolation to her that his hair must have smelled of her cunt a lot more than she could have possibly stunk of him.

She should have asked Scott to wait for her, but she might as well had asked her father to sit outside Charles Vane’s tent and listen to her fucking. Such as it was, she was strong enough to make her way back to her own bed without any adult supervision, thank you, and fuck off.

The moon had been low and bright and a long shadow fell across her path. Materializing from the darkness, an unwashed mass of a neanderthal blocked her way, reeking of seaweed and horse-piss. A pirate. If Charles hadn’t been such a cunt himself, he would’ve walked her home, but no, he was more concerned about appearing chivalrous before his crew - God forbid! - than making sure Eleanor got back in one piece. She made a mental note to punch him in the balls for it later.

“Well, well, well… What have we here..,” the drunkard blocking her path all but oinked, so porcine indeed had he become that she had half a mind to roast him for her supper. “If it isn’t the cunt.”

“Get out of my fucking way if you know what’s good for you,” Eleanor snapped, side-stepping the man before her. It was far too late in the night, and much too hot for this crap. She reached for the blade tucked down the back of her skirts. “Won’t ask you again.”

“Mr. Singleton,” a voice boomed behind her would-be assailant. “You’re wanted by Mr. Gates.”

“Just taking in the sights and the sounds, Captain,” the man snarled at Eleanor, but backed away, a crooked smile making his teeth gleam in the moonlight. “I’ll leave you and the cunt to it, then?”

“Captain,” Eleanor let go of the hilt of her blade, her eyes slowly focusing on the distinctive mustache and then the glow of Captain Flint’s eyes.

“Miss Guthrie,” the pirate captain said, extending his hand towards her. “Please, allow me the honor of escorting you.”

She had placed her hand in his, her heart speeding up. So close to her, could Flint smell Charles on her skin the same way she did? “I could have taken care of myself,” she said.

“I have no doubt of that, Miss Guthrie. Only that Mr. Singleton, for all his brutish behavior still holds value to me as a member of my crew. I had no desire to see him gutted like a pig.”

She looked up to find Flint grinning down at her and her own lips twitched into an involuntary smile in return. “You’re not like the other captains,” she said, leaning against his solid frame as they walked in step next to each other. Flint’s coat must have been boiling him in this heat. A part of Eleanor wanted to rip all her clothes off and throw herself into the sea. Let them sort her from the mermaids later, at least she would not be killed by a _man_.

“And you’re not like the other governors,” Flint replied in a tone that was too deep to have been drole. 

She smiled at him again as they walked up to the entrance of her tavern. “Can I offer you a drink, Captain?”

“What would my men think?”

“Probably that you’re fucking me. Which, all things considered, could only increase your standing in their eyes. Men don’t trust men who don’t like to fuck.”

“Not to be presumptuous or crude, Miss Guthrie, but I don’t need any more bad blood between my crew and the _Ranger_.”

She had to laugh at that. “I like your balls, Captain. If you weren’t already my top earner, I’d still be an admirer of your balls. Drink then?”

She walked inside, feeling his eyes on her back. How odd it was to have her back to this pirate knowing that she could trust him to watch it, and nothing but. He was not like the other pirates, this Captain Flint. She poured rum into two cups and pushed one across the bar towards Flint.

“It’s a hot night, Captain. Take your coat off. Relax for a while.”

Flint swallowed and twirled the corner of his mustache, more pensively than with any intent on seduction. “My own father died when I was a young lad,” he’d begun to speak, wrapping his fingers around the proffered cup of rum. His coat remained perplexingly and stubbornly upon his frame. “He had been no one of import and I was raised mostly by my grandfather, who also passed, not long thereafter. I do not know what my father would think of me - of this man I have become. Of the things I’ve done. Sometimes I wonder if I would have done things differently if he had been here to see it. It colors one’s narrative, you know - an audience.”

Eleanor looked down at the bar where her own hands had been clasped against the hard wood, her knuckles strained. If her father could see what she was doing, she would only do it _harder_ to punish him for ever having dared to look away.

Flint took a slow drink, letting the rum slide down his throat as he threw his head back. He shut his eyes as if chasing away an onslaught of ghosts. Eleanor found herself enjoying the way the candlelight played against his russet hair. It looked brighter in sunlight, she recalled, like an untamed flame. In the darkness, the burn of the hair was diminished, yet not the man.

“You may not be the true governor of this place,” he resumed, looking into his empty cup as if trying to divine in it some murky future, “but you are Nassau. And she is nothing without you.”

He placed the cup back down upon Eleanor’s bar and mechanically she had refilled it.

“Thank you for the drink, Miss Guthrie,” he turned as if to leave.

“Have another,” she said quickly. His back had been to her and he wavered. “I like being quiet with you, Captain,” she added. It was the best way she could explain this feeling that had crept into her heart. Listening to this strange mariner speak, she did not need to be Eleanor Guthrie, she could just _be_.

He turned back slowly, taking an uncertain step closer to the bar. “Sometimes,” he spoke softly, “not to speak is a rare luxury.”

They clinked their cups together, each making a silent toast. She had no means to tell what it was that Captain Flint had toasted to, as for herself, it changed with each warming swallow of the rum. 

_To new friendships._

_To a prosperous trade._

_To my mother’s memory._

_To Nassau._


End file.
